they have shaped the perceptions of the world since. Autism Coupland focuses in this novel on the idea that McLuhan exhibited many signs today recognized as falling somewhere on the autism spectrum. He includes Simon Baron-Cohen's autism-spectrum quotient quiz, and discusses how McLuhan's actions may have been signs of this condition. Michael McLuhan, executor of the McLuhan estate, criticized Coupland's suggestions of autism. "These ridiculously absurd speculations completely mar what would have been an interesting and unique biographical approach," he said, adding that the biographies by Terrance Gordon and Philip Marchand are superior. Speaking on behalf of all the McLuhan children, he also said their father "was not disabled or challenged in any way. He was not autistic...As his children, we can assure you he had no issues with being touched." However, Coupland does not state that McLuhan was autistic, but uses McLuhan's actions as a point of relation between himself and his subject. Autism has been a theme in other books by Coupland, himself autistic, such as JPod. Technology The biography also takes a technological approach to the works of Marshall McLuhan, and how his ideas have become even more important with the rise of the Internet. As Coupland has written about the effects of technology in previous works like Microserfs and JPod, he discusses the relations between modern technology and McLuhan's ideas in the modern context, with subject matter like Wikipedia and YouTube. References 2009 non-fiction books Canadian biographies Books by Douglas Coupland Marshall McLuhan Penguin Books books